We study the relation between quark confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. Using lattice QCD formalism, we analytically express the various 'confinement indicators', such as the Polyakov loop, its fluctuations, the Wilson loop, the inter-quark potential and the string tension, in terms of the Dirac eigenmodes. In the Dirac spectral representation, there appears a power of the Dirac eigenvalue ${lambda }_{n}$ such as ${lambda }_{n}^{{N}_{t}-1}$, which behaves as a reduction factor for small ${lambda }_{n}$. Consequently, since this reduction factor cannot be cancelled, the low-lying Dirac eigenmodes give negligibly small contribution to the confinement quantities, while they are essential for chiral symmetry breaking. These relations indicate that there is no direct one-to-one correspondence between confinement and chiral symmetry breaking in QCD. In other words, there is some independence of quark confinement from chiral symmetry breaking, which can generally lead to different transition temperatures/densities for deconfinement and chiral restoration. We also investigate the Polyakov loop in terms of the eigenmodes of the Wilson, the clover and the domain-wall fermion kernels, and find similar results. The independence of quark confinement from chiral symmetry breaking seems to be natural, because confinement is realized independently of quark masses and heavy quarks are also confined even without the chiral symmetry.

This is an author-created, un-copyedited version of an article accepted for publication in 'Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics'. The publisher is not responsible for any errors or omissions in this version of the manuscript or any version derived from it. The Version of Record is available online at https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6471/aa8e2f.